by Demand:
High-quality visual rendering accurately represents a 1 cubic millimeter sample of the human brain.
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With threads of whiskey blue, green and orange pouring on a black background, and image shared with Reddit on May 12, 2024, claimed to show “1 cubic millimeter brain”. At the time of writing, the post had received over 26,000 votes.
A Google keyword search Many relevant results are returned, including a Smithsonian Magazine An article published in May 2024 described researchers who created “a digital map that shows a tiny chunk of the human brain in unprecedented detail.”
This image is authentic and shows a 3D map of neurons in the brain. We’ve rated this claim as “True,” but first let’s describe what that research means—and what’s visible in the rendering.
The Smithsonian piece cited an article that published it Nature News set out the research. Scientists at Google Research and Harvard University’s Lichtman Lab used a small piece of the human brain, and the data was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science. The images show neurons, or connections, between brain cells responsible for sharing information throughout the organ.
The brain sample was taken from the cortex – the part of the brain involved in learning – of a 45-year-old woman undergoing surgery to treat her epilepsy. Stained and preserved with heavy metals to make it more visible, the sample was cut into an estimated 5,000 slices measuring just 34 nanometers thick to be imaged using an electron microscope.
According to the Science article, the 3D brain map:
… it covers a volume of about one cubic millimeter, one millionth of a whole brain, and contains about 57,000 cells and 150 million synapses — the connections between neurons… [and] incorporates a whopping 1.4 petabytes of data.
The researchers used specially built AI models to stitch the images together to recreate the sample in three dimensions with associated datasets and visualizations. made available online.
The “nanoscale-resolution reconstruction of a millimeter-scale fragment of the human cerebral cortex” is said to provide unprecedented insight into how brain tissue is organized at different layers, including at the supracellular, cellular and subcellular layers, of according to s news release at the time.
According to the authors, the reconstruction is about “57,000 cells, about 230 millimeters of blood vessels, and almost 150 million synapses.” Through this, the research team discovered aspects of the human temporal cortex that had been little appreciated before.
Disruption of synaptic and neural brain circuits, which transmit information for brain functionality, are thought to play a role in a number of conditions rooted in the brain, from schizophrenia and autism to bipolar disorder and others neuropsychiatric diseases. By better understanding how these communication pathways function, scientists hope to gain a more precise understanding of how such conditions arise and persist in the brain.
Regarding the study at hand, the researchers concluded that it provides evidence for a new approach to “see insight and ultimately gain insight into the physical underpinnings of normal human brain function and disorder.”
The image used in the Reddit post also appeared ia blog post published by Google on May 4, 2024, describing how the image – and others – were created with the help of AI. It read, in part:
By combining brain imaging with AI-based image processing and analysis, our teams have recreated nearly every cell and all of its connections within a tiny amount of human brain tissue about half the size of a grain of rice.
Other images included in the research showed a “dense and intricate map” of several pairs of neurons that were “surprisingly strongly connected to each other – as many as 50 synapses.”
(Google Research & Lichtman Lab (Harvard University). Illustrated by D. Berger (Harvard University))
Another close-up showed synapses “swimming” as they come between neurons, carrying information and signals essential to human life.
(Google Research & Lichtman Lab (Harvard University). Illustrated by D. Berger (Harvard University))
This reception of signals is shown in the image below, which shows one neuron in white and the surrounding axons, part of the neuron that sends electrical signals.
(Google Research & Lichtman Lab (Harvard University). Illustrated by D. Berger (Harvard University))
“There is still much more to look at and understand from our reconstruction of this piece of the human brain, and we hope that other researchers will use the data to make further discoveries,” write Google team.
“Scientists believe that by continuing to research the connections of the brain, they can understand things such as how our memories form or what causes neurological disorders and diseases such as autism and Alzheimer’s.”
Snopes looked into other claims pertaining to the brainoh whether it’s true we only use 10% of our gray matter to Bluetooth headphones or not”Fry our brains.” Check out more of our health related controversies here.
Sources:
“6 Incredible Images of the Human Brain Taken with the Help of Google’s AI.” Google9 May 2024, https://blog.google/technology/research/google-ai-research-new-images-human-brain/.
Without a name. Making and Breaking Connections in the Brain | UC Davis Neuroscience Center. 11 Sept. 2020, https://neuroscience.ucdavis.edu/news/making-and-breaking-connections-brain.
“Cubic Millimeter Section of Human Brain Reconstructed at Nanoscale Resolution.” EurekAlert!, https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1043546. Accessed 23 May 2024.
Magazine, Smithsonian, and Will Sullivan. “Scientists have imaged and mapped a tiny piece of the human brain. This is what they found.” Smithsonian Magazine, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-imaged-and-mapped-a-tiny-piece-of-human-brain-heres-what-they-found-180984340/ . Accessed 23 May 2024.
Photo of a 1 Cubic Millimeter Brain – Google Search. https://www.google.com/search?q=photograph+of+1+cubic+millimeter+brain&sca_esv=5a8c8ac8ff46dd80&sca_upv=1&ei=jJ1PZouQE-eA0PEP7NeKkAI&ved=0ahUKEwiLhvmtxaSGAxAactoF&D+photograph+1+cubic+millimeter+brain&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiJ nBob3RvZ3JhcGggb2YgMSBjdWJpYyBtaWxsaW1ldGVyIGJyYWluMggQABiABBiiBDIIEAAYgAQYogQyCBAAGIAEGAEGKIEMggQABiABBIiQBDIIEAAYgAQYogQyCBAAGIAEGAEGKIEMggQABiABBIiQBDIIEAAYgAQYogQyCBAAGIAEGKIEMggQABiABBIiQBDIIKdw BAaABgQGqAQMwLjG 4AQPIAQD4AQGYAgSgAooBwgIOEAAYgAQYsAMYhgMYigXCAgsQABiwAxiiBBiJBcICCxAAGIAEGLADGKIEmAMAiAYBkAYIkgcDMy4xoAfpAw&client-gwps . Accessed 23 May 2024.
Data Released | H01 Release. https://h01-release.storage.googleapis.com/data.html. Accessed 23 May 2024.
Shapson-Coe, Alexander, et al. “Petavoxel Section of Human Cerebral Cortex Reconstructed at Nanoscale Resolution.” Science, vol. 384, no. 6696, May 2024, p. ead4858. DOI.org (Crossref)https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adk4858.
Taoufik, Ré, et al. “Synaptic Dysfunction in Neurodegenerative and Neurodevelopmental Diseases: An Overview of Multipotent Stem Cell-Based Disease Models.” Open Biology, vol. 8, no. 9, September 2018, p. 180138. PubMed Centralhttps://doi.org/10.1098/rsob.180138.
Wang, Xinyuan, et al. “Synaptic Dysfunction in Complex Psychiatric Disorders: From Genetics to Mechanisms.” Genome Medicine, vol. 10, no. 1, January 2018, p. 9. Central BioMedhttps://doi.org/10.1186/s13073-018-0518-5.
Wong, Carissa. msgstr “Cubic millimeter of brain mapped in amazing detail.” nature, vol. 629, no. 8013, May 2024, pp. 739–40. www.nature.comhttps://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01387-9 .
